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Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

Bernadette Roberts

But this going-out is an upheaval, a complete turnabout of such proportions it cannot possibly be missed, under-emphasized, or sufficiently stressed as a major landmark in the contemplative life.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Emphasized Landmark Major Possible Proportion Sufficient Under
When one is perfectly still-mind and body, silent and alone-there is no personality to speak of, thus personality is one’s unique way of expression, it is what others see and know of us, nothing more or deeper than that.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Alone Deeper Expression Nothing Personality Unique
The truest communication with God is absolute, total silence; there is not a single word in existence that can convey this communication.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Communication Existence God Silence Total
I can only speculate why so little has been said of this breakthrough; in fact , I may never get over the silence on the part of writers who say nothing about this second movement.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Breakthrough Movement Nothing Second Speculate
Only God is love, and for this love to be fully realized self must step aside. And not only do we not need a self to love God, but for the same reason we do not need a mind to know him, for that in us which knows God, is God.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Aside God Love Mind Realized Reason Self
It can no longer be tested by any force or trial, nor moved by the winds of change, and at this point the self has obviously outworn its function; it is no longer needed or useful, and life can go on without it.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Function Longer Moved Needed Point Tested
The assumption that the egoless condition, or union of self and God, is man’s final goal and ultimate destiny is a great mistake.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Assumption Destiny Final Men Mistake Union
Instead of the usual unlocalized centre of myself, there was nothing there, it was empty, and at the moment of seeing this there was a flood of quiet joy and I knew, finally I knew what was missing-it was my “self”.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Empty Flood Instead Missing Moment Nothing Seeing
I went on to discover that in its deepest sense, the will is not primarily the faculty of desire for anything known, but rather, the desire for something unknown, animate desire for something that lies beyond ourselves, a longing for something we know is missing in us.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Desire Lying Missing Ourselves Something
This search for perfection – which is a search for divinity – is nothing more than the failure to accept our existence the way it is.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Divinity Existence Perfection Way
Rather, it is for the hardy who have been tried by fire and have come to rest in a tough, immovable trust in “that” which lies beyond the known, beyond the self, beyond union and even beyond love and trust itself
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Beyond Come Have Immovable Love Rest Tried Union
The reflexive mechanism of the mind -or whatever it is that allows us to be self-conscious – is cut off or permanently suspended so the mind is ever after held in a fixed now moment out of which it cannot move in its uninterrupted gaze upon the Unknown
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Discovery Gaze Immediate Mind Permanently Unknown
Since the moment of self-consciousness comes to a permanent end – and a new journey begins- is such a decisive stroke or milestone in the contemplative life.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Contemplative Journey Life Permanent Self
In some ways, all our experiences of God are beyond belief, because all conceptual beliefs pale when compared to the experiential reality.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Experience God Reality Way
Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Along Moving Running Spiritual Taken
To be forgiven is not enough; we must put an end to the very need to be forgiven.
BERNADETTE ROBERTS

Enough Forgiveness Needs

Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

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Spiritual life is like a moving sidewalk. Whether you go with it or spend your whole life running against it, you’re still going to be taken along.

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